Couple Spent $400K in Failed Bid to Rejoin Disney's Club

Scott and Diana Anderson were booted from the exclusive Club 33 in 2017
By Kate Seamons,  Newser Staff
Posted Sep 4, 2024 10:25 AM CDT
Couple Loses $400K Fight to Rejoin Disney's Exclusive Club
   (Getty Images / HuyNguyenSG)

Scott and Diana Anderson spent nearly $125,000 a year on their near-constant trips to Disneyland. They've spent roughly three times that in a failed bid to regain their membership to Disney's exclusive Club 33. As the Los Angeles Times reports, the Andersons spent more than a decade on the waiting list for the private club, finally joining in 2012 and forking over annual dues of $31,500. The Arizona couple, both 60, traveled to the theme park as many as 80 times a year, but the fairy tale screeched to a halt on Sept. 3, 2017, when Scott was accused of being drunk near the entrance of California Adventure.

Their Club 33 membership was yanked—its membership rules explicitly note public intoxication isn't allowed—and they've been fighting ever since to get it back. That fight hit a wall on Tuesday, when an Orange County jury found Disney didn't improperly revoke their membership. Per testimony from the civil trial, security guards say Scott had a strong smell of alcohol on his breath, was slurring his words, and struggled to stand on the night in question. Attorney Sean Macias says Scott had at most three drinks, including red wine—which Macias claims triggered a vestibular migraine and caused the symptoms in question.

Macias alleged there was also a lack of evidence: no surveillance video or Breathalyzer or blood tests. The couple wanted to claim they were being retaliated against for complaining about a fellow club member's behavior—the Daily Breeze reported at the time that Scott had emailed management to complain about a Club 33 member who he said verbally attacked a terminally ill fellow member, but the judge didn't allow them to present that as evidence. "My wife and I are both dead set that this is an absolute wrong, and we will fight this to the death," said Scott, who plans to appeal. Diana said much the same. "I'll sell a kidney [to pay for the fight]. I don't care." (More Disneyland stories.)

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